


Quicksand Cache

by abbacchiosbelt (harimenui)



Series: Commissions [15]
Category: Creepypasta - Fandom, Mario Party (Video Games)
Genre: A little edgy, Creepypasta, Gen, Minor Violence, POV First Person, Real Life, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27721130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harimenui/pseuds/abbacchiosbelt
Summary: Reuniting with your friends to play one of your favorite games has unexpected consequences.
Series: Commissions [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1404199





	Quicksand Cache

**Author's Note:**

> A commission for a good friend, after discussing how weird Mario Party 2 is.

Everyone who has played Mario Party growing up has a favorite minigame – even if you’ve only played the game once or twice, you can usually fondly remember a few of the minigames. There are so many choices that it’s hard to pick a favorite minigame, let alone a favorite Mario Party game! Despite that, my friends and I have always enjoyed playing Mario Party 2 the most.

Mario Party 2 was the pinnacle of Mario Party games to us. Sure, you could argue subsequent games got better and better, but nothing beat MP2 for us. The minigames, the costumes, the boards, and the music all brought us back over and over. It was our favorite.

At least, it was our favorite.

You might be asking yourself why we stopped loving Mario Party 2. It’s been a long time since we played or have even seen each other. The last time we played together was the culmination of something… strange. I might as well tell you what happened since you’re reading this post on my little corner of the internet.

Let me start from the beginning… Mario Party 2 came out in 1999. The game came out when I was just a kid. It was easy enough to play. It didn’t require much reading, and anything we didn’t understand was easy to figure out with the help of a parent. Either way, I loved it! I played it all the time, happily choosing Donkey Kong as my character every time. I remember loving how silly he looked compared to the rest of the cast. As time passed, I began to make friends in school and would often invite them over to play on my N64. Of course, we’d always end up playing a game of Mario Party 2! Luckily for me, no one else wanted to pick DK, so I always got to play as my favorite character.

My favorite minigame, in particular, was one called Quicksand Cache. It was a 3-vs-1 minigame where we could work together, or the odd player out could work against the other three. My friends dreaded it when it came up because I had become a master at it! Nothing was funnier than me than seeing Donkey Kong’s big head on top of a Bowser suit as I made him spin the quicksand in circles to collect the coins falling from the sky while my friends tried to resist being sucked under. I always won, much to the chagrin of my friends.

All was well, at first – we grew up and didn’t have as much time to play games. People moved, new consoles came out, and Mario Party 2 was put into a box filled with other old games and consoles. It wouldn’t be the end for the game, though. Nostalgia called once my friends and I graduated from high school and found ourselves wanting to reconnect. What better to do than hang out and play old videogames that we used to love?

We found free time a couple of times a month (sometimes more if we were lucky) to get together and hang out. This particular evening, our choice was Mario Party 2. After digging it out of storage, I blew on the cartridge – old habits die hard – and put the game in the N64 as my friends and I sat back, watching the silly opening. Nothing was amiss as we pressed start, quickly picking our old favorite characters. As always, I chose Donkey Kong. This time, my friends chose Yoshi, Wario, and Luigi.

Our first game was a little off. We noticed we were getting a lot of 3-vs-1 minigames. While the game works by using RNG, 4-player minigames were the most typical choice. Nearly every turn, I was landing on red spaces and my friends were landing on blue spaces. It was frustrating losing 3 coins every turn, but it was quickly made back up to me by the game choosing Quicksand Cache for every minigame.

Over and over we watched the screen fade and open up to an arena filled with quicksand, Donkey Kong’s head on top of a Bowser suit in the very middle as Yoshi, Luigi, and Wario stood on the outside. The game went as normal, at least, the characters eventually getting sucked into the vortex of sand as DK raised his arms and spun in the middle of the screen.

While the game was frustrating, the sight of DK in the middle was still just as funny to my friends and me as it had been when we were kids. At first, anyways… As the game came up over and over, something about the game felt almost unsettling. Nothing had changed, but the whole room could tell there was something off. We chalked it off to frustration over the game giving us bad RNG and moved on to the next game.

Again, the same issue was bothering us – the game was determined to pick 3-vs-1 minigames, forcing us to play Quicksand Cache repeatedly. We pushed through, but after the second board, my friends were done with Mario Party 2 for the night. I couldn’t blame them, as I was getting annoyed too despite how many coins I was winning from the game. The night went on and eventually, my friends departed for their own homes, leaving me by myself.

Out of curiosity, I decided to boot up Mario Party 2 and see if I got the same results I had earlier. I chose Donkey Kong, of course, and picked the same characters my friends had. The only difference is that they were set to COM. Strangely enough, the game was back to normal. I texted my friends about it, and they agreed it was just a strange fluke.

Months went by where my friends would pick Mario Party 2 for game night and we’d have the same issue. We decided that enough was enough and put the Mario Party 2 cartridge to rest for good. Perhaps its long life had corrupted the game. I couldn’t help but give the game one last try, though. I had loved it for so long that I wanted to play one last game, even if the cartridge was starting to glitch out.

I loaded up the game and went to the character menu, but something was off. The characters, normally cheerful, had blank expressions on their faces. I figured the game must really be messing up, but I was determined to play one more time. I picked Donkey Kong and his model stayed static. Undeterred, I picked the other characters to play as COMs and went into a board.

The game had gone silent except for the rolling of the dice – the mechanical, whirring noise was a stark contrast to the upbeat and cheerful music the boards usually played. I checked the sound settings, but nothing was turned off, so I continued. I thought that maybe blowing on the cartridge so many times had finally caught up to me – I’d had it happen with other games, so this one must simply be on its last legs. I pressed A to hit the dice, and the game officially started.

I landed on a red space.

The COMs landed on blue spaces, and to no surprise, we were brought back to Quicksand Cache. This time, though, the COMs were still. They did nothing as I made DK spin, which meant they were sucked under almost immediately. The game quickly ended, confusing me. I knew the COMs did weird things sometimes, but they hadn’t moved at all. Still, I wasn’t convinced it was anything other than the game glitching out.

As I looked at the screen, though, I noticed the character portraits were frowning. It was the same portrait the characters got when they were in last place on the results screen. Their sad faces were unnerving, and even Donkey Kong was frowning. There was no way I was going to stop, though, especially not when the game was acting so weird.

I hit the dice again, and by the time the turn had ended, we were back in Quicksand Cache. This time, instead of standing still, the characters went into their losing animation. They even exclaimed out in defeat like they were supposed to when they lost – but they hadn’t lost. The game had just started. I put the controller down and watched as DK sat still in the middle, the other characters still quickly succumbing to the quicksand before the minigame ended.

By this point, I was creeped out. Other things could be passed off as glitches, but this was more than that. My heart was pounding. As much as I wanted to shut off the N64, I couldn’t make myself move other than to pick my controller back up. The rumble pack vibrated at full force as soon as my hands wrapped around it, forcing me to drop it in surprise.

I watched in shock as the game began to play itself. I hadn’t set the game to all COMs. Even if I wanted to, I hadn’t checked the menu since I started. When I looked at DK, he suddenly had COM under his name. The whirring of the dice filled my ears again as the characters moved around the board by themselves, but even the game itself could do nothing against the pull of Quicksand Cache.

The game opened up for the third time. This time, Donkey Kong was frowning as he sat in the middle of the screen. The other characters still had their sad expression plastered on their face. When the game started this time, the COMs ran desperately to the edge of the map while DK seemed to move uncontrollably. He spun faster and faster, faster than should be allowed, until once again Yoshi, Luigi, and Wario were sucked underneath the sand. There was no happiness when the game ended. Donkey Kong’s expression remained sad, almost pained looking.

The game continued as I sat frozen, watching as the character’s expressions became sadder as each turn was played. Quicksand Cache was played over and over as the COMs tried desperately to escape their fate, occasionally giving up again and remaining still while DK was forced to spin.

The final turn loaded up and I gasped as the only character that remained was Donkey Kong. The other profiles were completely gone, and the board was empty – neither Toad nor Boo nor any of the other NPCs were present. Even the dice was silent, the only sound remaining the step of DK’s feet as he moved for his final turn.

There was no final minigame, the game abruptly cutting to the final ‘battle’ with Bowser on each board. There was no Bowser, though – the only thing there was DK’s Quicksand Cache sprite, his head resting atop what was allegedly a Bowser suit. He stared straight ahead, and it’s then that I noticed the rust-colored edges around the neck of the suit.

There was no way – this was a kid’s game. I scramble to shut the console off but DK’s screech from the screen stops me, his cry pitched up so high that it almost wasn’t identifiable anymore. I look back up and DK’s face is fully taking up the screen, his frown turned back into his emotionless smile. The victory music starts to play, but this time, it’s slow and somber. I can’t handle it anymore - this time when I go for the power button, nothing stops me and the game blinks out as I press it.

I pull out the cartridge as fast as I can and run downstairs to throw it into the trash, not even taking a moment to give it a second thought as I throw away what I thought was one of my favorite games. I even take the trash out despite the bag not being full, desperate to get as far away from the game as possible.

When I walk back in the house, I feel sudden exhaustion that forces me to sit on the couch. I pull out of my phone and consider talking to my friends about it, but where would I even start? Even though the game was acting weird when we played together, they’d never believe this. I sigh and put my phone back in my pocket. I decide that I don’t want to sleep in my room tonight because of the N64’s presence. Even though it hadn’t been the console itself, there was no denying the negative aura that had been present in my room ever since we started playing the game again.

For now, I decide to rest. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to play again after that. Maybe one day, just to reassure myself that what I experienced wasn’t the game… I know I’m not dreaming, but surely something was off with my copy.

I can only hope no one else had to go through what I did.

* * *

Donkey Kong squeezes his eyes shut as the screams of his dying friends fill his ears again – he can’t keep count of how many times they’ve been forced to do this… He was forced to be the catalyst of death as he pulled his friends into the pit of sand, their final words lost to the sand filling their mouths as they suffocated to death. The other games were not like this, but this one was different.

It was real. The body he wore was Bowser’s skin, the Koopa King having died long ago once Donkey Kong was forced into the suit. His friends were no longer themselves, but copies, just like everyone else in the game.

Except for him. Only he remained as the original, the one who had been programmed to have fun with his friends. This, though, was not what he wanted. He was forced to smile as his friends die over and over again, his unending spinning in the sandpit the cause.

Maybe one day it would stop if he could convince the copies to break from their part. While he wouldn’t be free, at least it could end.

Donkey Kong would wait.

One day, he would get his wish.


End file.
